DATfan

The answer is, unsurprisingly, "Yes." Items to note. One. MD is going away. We've known that ever since Sony announced, over a year ago, that it was rationalizing its product line. Going away means that more and more stores will not have any more MDs. One day, there will be no new MDs, except on eBay, and in the closets of MD-forever-ists. Perhaps, in a post-apocalyptic world, another civilization will arise, and it will develop minidiscs. Until then, there will be a "slight delay." Two. The release of the MZ-RH1 was extraordinary, and exceeded (for most of us) our rational expectations for what Sony would ever do with MD. This was the aging prizefighter on a last comeback, going out on top. Three. Going forward, any properly-functioning MD setup will continue to work exactly the same as it does now. That is all!

Most big chain stores (in the U.S.) charge for shelf placement. If you don't pay, you don't get any shelf space. This is true for most everything from cereal at grocery stores to electronics at Wal-Mart. Edit: The Wall Street Journal had a story on this. One major (unnamed) retail chain charges USD 55,000 per hook. Selling 10 styles of MD packages would cost over half a million U.S. dollars, for that one retailer.

Just unboxed a new INTEC 275 system consisting of the MD-133, the pre main amp, and the tuner. I just need some time to figure out how to connect up and set the timer now. Will post more later.

Oh, I do. I got fed up with randomly losing recordings on 80 minute MEMOREX MDs, so out they went. I will continue to use MD as long as it is the most convenient method to make and play back my recordings. The key for me is up-speed playback. Show me any non-PC portable media device that both make the recordings, unattended, and I can playback at +50% or +100% with pitch control. (Of course I can do that tethered to my PC, but ...)

I would only use the head cleaner, with long intervals in-between. Maybe every 2000 hours of (recording) use. Is that too many? <g>

Yes, that will work. I chose to get an adequate TOSLINK to TOSLINK 25 foot cable on Amazon for about $12, plus $5 for an adaptor. I'm not sure what you mean by "electrical." If you mean you can use a coaxial digital cable from RCA-plug to a miniplug, carrying digital (not analog), my NH900 manual is silent on this, which I take to mean it is not supported. But let us know the results if you try it.

He didn't say it recorded, actually. Therefore, ipso facto, buyers can't have a need for new, blank, Hi-MDs. Oh, why didn't I think of that? On with the panic!

Thanks for the link.

To offset the negative FUD. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?s=&am...st&p=111243 Another Hi-MD unit in the works, you bet! Too bad there won't be any blank Hi-MDs for it.

And yet I suspect there are PDFs of the 2007 lineup, especially Intec, somewhere.

As the subject states, what's the best cleaning MD to use in a Hi-MD recorder? I can choose from (at least) the Maxell MD-CL Sony MD-6LCL Sony MD-8HCL Not sure what's different between the two Sony products, or which is the best for Hi-MD. EDIT: OK I see that Maxell MD-CL = lens cleaner Sony MD-6LCL = lens cleaner Sony MD-8HCL = head cleaner I guess I need the head cleaner. Problem solved?

Yes, IIRC you posted that. Where did you find the Onkyo 2007 line-up? I look here and still see the INTEC decks: http://www.jp.onkyo.com/product/mini_compo/index.htm

EDIT: Interesting Sony history of recording media here: http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/media/history/ Does anyone remember 200MB HiFD?

Source, please.

You probably need a TOSLINK cable and the miniplug adaptor linked in the prior post. As the previous poster said, "Note that it is very important to setup your digital output to settings that your MD understands (16bit/44.1kHz). MD do not record or downsample 24bit/96kHz audio." So you need to pass 2-channel, 44.1 kHz, 16 bit, non-SCMS digital audio.

Not having the manual at hand, I am guessing that, like my NH900, you have a mini-plug that can be used for analog-in or optical-digital-in. If you need to send digital to the unit, you will have to either buy a converter that adapts your RCA-plug digital out to an optical digital out terminating in a male mini-plug, or purchase a sound card that contains an optical digital out such as TOSLINK. Use an adaptor such as the one here at Minidisc Access http://www.minidiscaccess.com/item.html?PRID=1561904 to convert TOSLINK to miniplug.

UPDATE: Using a new 80 minute regular MD (Nashua). I forgot to check until after everything was off. So I looked and in fact, everything was written correctly, without any intervention. Conclusion: the MEMOREX brand 80 minute MDs are defective, as the other brand did not exhibit any problems. Because I cannot risk losing a whole day of recording, I discarded the remaining MEMOREX brand 80 minute MDs from my disc rotation. I say "remaining" because I have thrown away at least one, and possibly two MEMOREX discs in the past (out of about 10 originally), due to faulty operation. Two or three failures out of ten is not a good sign. I have not had any problems with my five HHB discs of the same age. I'll see if this problem recurs with any other brand discs. Edited-- MEMOREX

Reminds me of when I upgraded from the LS-120 "Superdisk" to LS-240 (240MB Capacity). Just like Hi-MD can use regular MDs at higher capacity, the LS-240 also formatted regular floppy disks to 32 MB capacity. But it was too risky to use for backups. If the drive failed, I could not get another LS-240 anywhere. It seemed the internal drives were available for all of 6 months, then gone!

14 tracks total. As I noted yesterday, it had 13 tracks and was about 7 minutes shy of the disc capacity yesterday, and I manually saved it all. I will see what happens today without any intervention. Maybe the issue is whether the disc is blank or has already some tracks on it, when it runs out of room.

Missed the exact end, but I came in before, pressed STOP, data saved (GROUP 1), started the recording again (GROUP 2). All my track marks were properly done up to that point. The next time I checked the player was off, and the GROUP 2 was, in fact, written (1 track, only 7 minutes in GROUP 2). This is using a different 80 minute disc than in the first posting. I will try this new disc again to see if it chokes on the TOC tomorrow, if I don't intervene.

Ah, forgot to mention it is on an AC adaptor. If I can, I will look at what it does today when it reaches the end of the disc.

Number of discs or amount of use? Just went from 5 Hi-MDs to total of 15, now. I record one per day, 8 hours of Hi-SP or Hi-LP, then grab about half the audio for listening at 200% speed, thanks to Sony's speed control on the NH900. Then, I recycle the Hi-MD in the recording rotation. Five discs was just enough for Monday-Friday, but I wanted some extras.

"The Hi-MD Panic of 2006" Or is it ... ?

I wouldn't doubt there's a supply bottleneck, as Sony is apparently the only manufacturer. For example, on Friday Tape Warehouse contacted me that they can't fill my order for 10 Hi-MD blanks because they just ran out of stock and no ETA for a reorder. They are unable to guarantee delivery before Christmas. In addition, they are blowing out all the Maxell cleaning MDs (=discontinued). But I don't believe that Hi-MD blanks will be discontinued by Sony for years, yet.

I have a NH900, recording digitally via the optical mini-plug in Hi-LP on a 80-minute MD. If I record past the end of the MD, everything recorded is lost, it is blank, no TOC written. I have it set to insert track marks when there are interruptions in the digital audio. The first break would have been at hour 3, then breaks every 30 minutes for the next 6 hours, then straight through to the end of the disc, about 10 hours 10 (?) minutes in total. Unfortunately, I did not observe when the recording failed, but when I checked on it after 10 hours, the player was off, the disc was blank. Of course when I started it, manually, it was operating and receiving audio. In previous cases, I have returned before 10 hours (say, hour 9) and manually stopped recording, and all data up to that point are saved. Is this a known issue? Any solutions? TIA